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Topic: I've lost that "new hobby" smell (Read 7271 times)

In my experience, your homebrew club s what you make of it. If everyone sits around and just drinks beer with no direction or focus, it makes it a lot harder. A club that is working towards making the club members better brewers through education and involvement is a wonderful thing.

My homebrew club takes the mullet approach to meetings: business up front, party in the back. We usually have a style assigned to each meeting, people bring in some commercial examples, we talk about the style, then try the homebrewed examples of the style. After that, we try whatever other homebrew people brought, then we kinda break up into smaller groups to socialize for the second half of the meeting.

It may help to reflect on why you got into the hobby in the first place, and what this or other hobbies mean to you. I started homebrewing at a point in my life when a lot of other things were a bit mixed up for me. It took me a few months to get to the local homebrew club, and I'm sorry I couldn't have spent more time with them -- what nice people -- before my life turned around and I found myself where I wanted to be. But the brewing process was, and is, a sort of zymurgical therapy. There, as where I am now, I can find plenty of excellent beer, though I do like to brew things that are not so common. Thinking about the process, planning my next brew, mulling over my current brews, reading up on brews, planning my equipment... I find that a very pleasant "vacation" from other things in my life.

I have the opposite problem which is I'd love to brew more but my life gets in the way. I am thinking of doing the occasional stovetop extract brew this coming academic year just to keep my hand in it.

I have to admit I also hit this "wall" not too long ago after I did 2 competitions, a wedding, a brew club mass brew, and a large backyard BBQ. Now that I've had a short break from the cleaning, sanitizing, recipe formulation, brewing, transferring, serving...and repeating I'm feeling much more inclined to do something fun versus what the masses wanted. Time to get back to the home brewer roots!

I am a member of the local homebrew club, but I really haven't tapped their resources much. That sounds like a good idea.

In my experience, your homebrew club s what you make of it. If everyone sits around and just drinks beer with no direction or focus, it makes it a lot harder. A club that is working towards making the club members better brewers through education and involvement is a wonderful thing.

Agree. There are some good and constructive clubs and then there are some not so good clubs. But a good one with knowledgeable and (here's they key) HELPFULL members can really turn you in the right direction. Be warry of a club that just sits around and drinks beer and shoots the bull most they time and be equally wary of clubs that only focus on criticism.

Summers are my time to drink the lagers I made in the winter. I do not like to brew in the summer heat. Now it has cooled down to a temperature where I am thinking of doing a brew agian. Landbiers are a style that I find tasty, and there is not much information out there abouit them. Told my wife I am now on a mission to brew one. If you don't know this lager style, you might find one imported from Germany, or if you are not so far from Wisconsin, the New Glarus 2 Women Lager is also a "Country Lager".

This is what is inspiring me to brew again. It might only fit into category 23, but I am brewing it for me.

Clubs - mine has little structure, but has some educational demos and the information is exchanged in face to face discussion. For some reason, I get a lot of questions on making Pilsners these days. Happy to share what I know.

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Jeff RankertAnn Arbor Brewers GuildAHA Governing Committee BJCP NationalHome-brewing, not just a hobby, it is a lifestyle!

Clubs - mine has little structure, but has some educational demos and the information is exchanged in face to face discussion. For some reason, I get a lot of questions on making Pilsners these days. Happy to share what I know.

Hmmm.... wonder why that would be?

Our club is more on the social side of the scale, without so many demonstrations and educational business. However, we have many experienced brewers that offer good advice if you ask questions. I like the more social clubs, but I am looking at joining another club that is more educationally focused. Glad I live up here in beer central where I have 4-5 homebrew clubs within a 15-20 minute drive.

I need your help, guys. I've hit a slump. I'm losing my enthusiasm and need a pep talk. I've made it through 7 successful brews, with #8 being bottled this weekend. In the past 6 months, I've gone from kits brewed and chilled in a tub to all-grain and a chest-freezer fermentation chamber. I consumed as much knowledge as I could on brewing from books and the internet. I was borderline obsessed, but it was new so I was excited.Well, the newness has worn off. My excitement has waned. Now it's just another Sunday in the kitchen.

So, I look to you for ideas. How do you keep it interesting? Do you take breaks? What keeps you coming back? I'm not giving up. I've tasted some of the best beer I've ever had, and you can't come back from that. I just want that spark back.

You've only scratched the surface grasshopper.

Over the past 5 years I've sworn to pack it in a number of times but so far have resisted quitting brewing. Indeed, a couple years ago producing a batch of beer was such an incredible PITA that it filled me with a tremendous sense of dread knowing I would be committing almost a full day to it.

So I changed my equipment up and brought the brewing back into the kitchen! I make half as much beer but have quadrupled my satisfaction and enjoyment of the process. The beer is better too.

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The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. -Richard P. Feynman

Laws are spider-webs, which catch the little flies, but cannot hold the big ones. -Anacharsis

So I changed my equipment up and brought the brewing back into the kitchen! I make half as much beer but have quadrupled my satisfaction and enjoyment of the process. The beer is better too.

I went nuts when I first moved to MO and had all the space I could want. I got a giant kettle and outdoor burner, and I was convinced I'd be doing a lot of 10-gal batches. Turns out I hated the extra work, and I hated brewing outside. Back in the kitchen too, with 5 gallon (or smaller) batches again.

Brewing outside in January/February was probably the hardest time for me to not throw in the towel.

A few years ago we put on an addition to our house and "my room" was a wood shop with a walk out to the backyard in the basement. I still brew outside (technically) but the only things outside most of the time is the propane burner, the kettle and a remote BBQ thermometer. I setup my mash cooler and everything else in the shop and only step out to manage the hot break and add hops.

I don't know if I'd still be doing this if I still had to wear long johns, insulated coveralls and heavy gloves to brew.

So I changed my equipment up and brought the brewing back into the kitchen! I make half as much beer but have quadrupled my satisfaction and enjoyment of the process. The beer is better too.

I went nuts when I first moved to MO and had all the space I could want. I got a giant kettle and outdoor burner, and I was convinced I'd be doing a lot of 10-gal batches. Turns out I hated the extra work, and I hated brewing outside. Back in the kitchen too, with 5 gallon (or smaller) batches again.

Are you guys telling me that I'm not the only one in the kitchen?? I'm stuck in apartments due to my travelling career and the stove top is my only way of brewing. Good to know I'm not the only one here using my poor little stove to make great beers!

I think if you are not wearing a kilt while you brew, you're not brewing!!!!!

Well said my good man.

My problem, though I haven't lost my new brewer smell so to speak, with my crazy work schedule back and forth across the country, I can't seem to get a decent brewing schedule. By the time I brew a batch, have it properly fermented and kegged and carbed, its time to hop a plane and head out again. By the time I get back, the beer has changed and lost its freshness. (Or my buddies have killed the taps filling growlers while I'm 2000 miles away) I got home last night and I'm here for two months now. You bet I'll be kilt brewing!!

« Last Edit: August 22, 2012, 12:28:11 PM by weazletoe »

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A man works hard all week, so he doesn't have to wear pants all weekend.

So I changed my equipment up and brought the brewing back into the kitchen! I make half as much beer but have quadrupled my satisfaction and enjoyment of the process. The beer is better too.

I went nuts when I first moved to MO and had all the space I could want. I got a giant kettle and outdoor burner, and I was convinced I'd be doing a lot of 10-gal batches. Turns out I hated the extra work, and I hated brewing outside. Back in the kitchen too, with 5 gallon (or smaller) batches again.

Are you guys telling me that I'm not the only one in the kitchen?? I'm stuck in apartments due to my travelling career and the stove top is my only way of brewing. Good to know I'm not the only one here using my poor little stove to make great beers!

There's a lot of us brewing on the stovetop. It's a necessity for me too most of the year, and I also appreciate the faster turnaround of a small batch. The time saved can make the difference between daydreaming about brewing and actually doing it... and enjoying the process while leaving some time left for the rest of my life.